Police bullets end a career of crime

April 21, 1927: The life and long criminal career of Harry Thomas came to a brutal end in a gunfight with Los Angeles police, The Times reported under the headlines “Hi-Jacker Dies With Boots On” and “Everyone Must Go Sometime, He Gasps at Last.”

“A machine gun, a sawed-off shotgun and two large caliber revolvers blazed into the darkness of West Thirty-Fifth Street last night, and when the barrage had lifted ‘Mile Away’ Harry Thomas, called the king of the hijackers and twice arrested on murder charges, lay mortally wounded,” The Times reported.

Thomas owed his nickname to the fact that whenever he was arrested -- as he was at least nine times in the five years he spent in California -- he would say he was a “mile away” when the crime occurred. The Times said that on the ambulance ride to the hospital, a detective told the wounded outlaw that he was dying. Thomas replied: “Everybody has to fall sometime.”